Up to this point, petitions on the site have required 25,000 signatures to obtain a formal response from the White House. The new requirement raises the number of signatures necessary to 100,000 within 30 days.

After several seemingly frivelous petitions -- including one requesting the United States begin construction on a Death Star -- White House staffers boosted the number in order to "ensure we're able to continue to give the most popular ideas the time they deserve," White House director of digital strategy Macon Phillips saidin a blog post Wednesday.

Phillips says use of the site has more than doubled in the past two months, and that more than 9 million signatures have been made on petitions since the site's debut in September 2011.

By the way, the "official" answer to the Death Star petition? Pretty simple: No.